ESP Vision forms in Seattle to act against school closures

[eridani]

The American Economic Review, one of the longest running journals in the field, recently released a study revealing that only "A one percent increase in the high school completion rate of all men ages 20-60 would save the United States as much as $1.4 billion per year in reduced costs from crime incurred by victims and society at large."

Having missed this statistic, states across the country are reacting to the financial crisis with school closures and teacher layoffs. While some of the largest districts have postponed massive layoffs for now, recently the Los Angeles Unified Schools threatened 2,300 teachers with pink slips and New York City Schools said they could lay off 15,000. The Seattle School District is planning to terminate or disrupt 13 schools, and Chicago is shuttering 16 of its own. Federal stimulus dollars for education will help ease some of the cuts, but politicians—from governors to local school officials—have promised closures and layoffs nonetheless.

Activists in Seattle, however, are working on an alternative lesson plan for our city that may prove to be a model for saving schools and halting jails.

Representatives from all the schools slated for closure and other community members have formed ESP Vision: Educators, Students and Parents for a Better Vision of the Seattle Schools—rallying hundreds against the school closures, teaming up with the local NAACP to help parents file over 200 grievances with Department of Education, and assisting parents in a formal appeals process to block the closures. Moreover, ESP Vision has teamed up with the Initiative-100 campaign that is attempting to block the building of a new city jail by collecting the 23,000 signatures needed to put its construction to a vote.

Mark Twain once said, “Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.” While Twain leaves us with a distasteful image, far more repugnant is a social order that invests in metal bars rather than in cultivating our children’s talents.

Jesse D. Hagopian is a teacher, education journalist, and a co-founder of ESP Vision: Educators, Students, and Parents for a Better Vision of the Seattle Schools (www.espvision.org). He can be reached at: jdhagopian {at} gmail.com